The Final Recital 5/2
Steven Z -
I’m writing about my experience planning this recital and making it a reality two days ago, on 4/30. For my final recital, I wanted to perform a few of the pieces that I learned and practiced throughout the senior project. I chose to play Bach’s Ave Maria, Saint Saens’ The Swan, Massenet’s Elegie, and Kreisler’s Liebesleid on the violin, and the complete Walton Viola Concerto (on the viola), and topped it off with a duet featuring my dear friend and violinist, Marco Opena, a student of BASIS Scottsdale and my stand partner in the Phoenix Youth Symphony.
Three weeks ago, I reached out to another music teacher at BASIS Mesa, Ms. Chiang, to ask if she could play the piano in my recital. After a planning process that took place over the span of two weeks, it seemed like our schedules would not work together for her to make my recital. We settled on an alternative, on the day of my recital, I would come to her classroom during a break and play together with her, for no particular audience, simply for the joy of making music. With a stroke of luck, we discovered that somehow she would have to stay later through the afternoon, and actually could come to my recital after all. So we had the most spontaneous performance of two pieces at my recital, having only rehearsed for 20 minutes moments before.
In contrast, my duet with Marco went much more smoothly. We chose to play Passacaglia by Handel/Halvorsen. We met a week before the performance for our first rehearsal and brought the piece to his lesson, with a violin professor at ASU. Through our rehearsal and lesson, we were able to prepare the showpiece sufficiently well to confidently finish off my recital.